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Yes, I noticed a lot of bargains in the city of Valencia, ranging from 20k Euros (£15,675) to 35k (£27,425) on idealista.com My partner, who prefers Valencia to Madrid, got quite excited on seeing them.
Even with the prices coming down, there is normally a drawback to be that cheap. Often they are 3rd or 4th floor with no lift, so unsuitable for us. But we’ve seen the odd place that are 1st floor and we will be out there looking this winter. Although my favourite places are either in Madrid or the north, Valencia is still going to hit the button – so long as we get decent internet access for our jobs. I’ve worked/lived through Madrid winters before, so know that won’t be a problem as Valencia is a lot milder. Plus, we use bottled water in the UK as London tap water isn’t much good (ok still better than the Valencian variety) so that won’t make a difference. The one thing I will miss I suspect is the bath – I may prefer to shower most days but it’s still a pleasure to occasionally run a bath. My missus will love eating the paella and rice dishes too (she always loves it when I cook one) – I’ll hunt down a Castilian tapas bar, I’m sure there’ll be one in the city.

Wouldn’t get too excited until you see them and get full details. They either don’t exist, or it’s just the deposit. You can never tell with websites. If it’s too good to be true it probably is 😆 If they are valid then Spain must be in a worse state than thought…at that price I would have thought investors would be snapping them up 🙄

Wouldn’t get too excited until you see them and get full details. They either don’t exist, or it’s just the deposit. You can never tell with websites. If it’s too good to be true it probably is 😆 If they are valid then Spain must be in a worse state than thought…at that price I would have thought investors would be snapping them up 🙄

I get the feeling that the Spanish “subasteros” (investors who target auctions) have used up their ammo too early buying what they thought were bargains during the last few years, only to see them decrease in value further. I don’t personally know any “professional” property investors in Spain, but I know plenty of Spanish who thought they knew the market and none of them thought that prices would get this low. I suspect 99% of Spanish property investors are nursing losses and simply not in a position to buy. That leaves the foreign investors and, to be frank, they’re not really going to be snapping up cheap tat in small villages 15 miles inland from Alicante.

Besides, as Ardun says, those prices aren’t that special anyway. As soon as you get into the Spanish hinterland there have always been flats for sale at dirt cheap prices, even during the boom.

Interesting point there chopera, there seemed to be a lot of those auctions going on selling distressed properties to investors a while ago, and it was reported that private people were either ‘warned off’ or ‘out-bid’ by certain heavy handed people, crooks really. Well, lets hope those crooks are nursing some big losses now 😛

The people I saw viewing the 20k flats in my apartment block were young Spanish people, mid to late 20’s, who were looking with their parents. With the help of ‘bank of Mum and Dad’ they would then have a mortgage free property in their home town.

That’s just who I saw looking around. A Spanish investor bought the top floor after less than 5 minutes of entering the building. He spent two weeks putting in a new kitchen/bathroom and has it rented out for 200 euros per month.

I guess local ‘investors’ are those who are considering the low prices (prices the same as the late 90’s?). Foreign buyers might be nervous as they don’t know the area, don’t have family/friends close by etc. so are more wary (or at least should be!)

Itsme I think you are spot on. It’s so much easier if you have knowledge about the area allready and that you live there. That way you can still fix it up and still make a few bucks on it. Hopefully in 10-20 years time you can sell it for an ok profit.

And I think that still a lot of Spanish people have the mentality of buying a place for life. If they buy close to their parents/brothers/sisters etc. then they’ll live there for a long time as they won’t see a need to leave. I know that I have the British attitude of buying a flat, doing it up, selling it for a profit and buying a house, but so many people buy a flat and live in in for 30/40 years etc. I think that a lot of the cheap buys will be parents buying so that their children don’t get stumped by a lifetime ball & chain mortgage and can live on the low wages locally and be close to the family. Nice for them.

Most of the Spanish people I know think that it’s crazy that British people leave their home towns, family/friends to move to Spain. They like to stick together, which in many ways is the nicest way to live. I often read in the Daily Mail about so and so who went to visit an aged relative in hospital in the UK and found that they were starving or conditions were terrible. In Spain the family would have been by the patients side day and night to make sure that all was ok.

Local knowledge is probably number one importance otherwise you could end up buying in ‘the Bronx’ as my husband calls dodgy areas. Too many Brits must have places in really bad areas. Who buying would know though? Renting first is so important, or at least stay for a long time in an area to get to hear local hearsay about which are the bad areas you should avoid. Raised eyebrows when talking about an area tells you a lot…..

I don’t know about big city areas such as Barcelona/Madrid, do Spanish families stick together there as they do in smaller towns and villages?

Wouldn’t get too excited until you see them and get full details. They either don’t exist, or it’s just the deposit. You can never tell with websites. If it’s too good to be true it probably is 😆 If they are valid then Spain must be in a worse state than thought…at that price I would have thought investors would be snapping them up 🙄

I get the feeling that the Spanish “subasteros” (investors who target auctions) have used up their ammo too early buying what they thought were bargains during the last few years, only to see them decrease in value further. I don’t personally know any “professional” property investors in Spain, but I know plenty of Spanish who thought they knew the market and none of them thought that prices would get this low. I suspect 99% of Spanish property investors are nursing losses and simply not in a position to buy. That leaves the foreign investors and, to be frank, they’re not really going to be snapping up cheap tat in small villages 15 miles inland from Alicante.

Besides, as Ardun says, those prices aren’t that special anyway. As soon as you get into the Spanish hinterland there have always been flats for sale at dirt cheap prices, even during the boom.

The 3 bedroom flat on sale for £20,000 (sterling) is still way too overpriced and I reckon that in three to four years time that flat will be worth just £10,000 (sterling) and when Spain finally abandons the Euro and adopts the Peseta, as it seems certain to do, then there will be absolutely no floor as to how low house prices can go. I wonder how the British expats who own a property in Spain are dealing with the economic and housing catastrophe in Spain. They must surely be bricking it right now and having endless sleepless nights that their primary nest egg in Spain is falling in value all the time.

itsme, most families I know in Madrid tend to have moved once, to upsize and that’s it. Back in the 80’s and 90s flats were so cheap that people paid their mortgage off in 10 or 15 years and were able to buy a new flat without having to sell the old one, they just rented it out instead. And once they had paid the new flat off they might buy somewhere on the coast or in their village, depending on where they spent their weekends. While the fact that it is quite expensive to move house in Spain might have something to do with it, I think the main reason is cultural (as you say). Also in Madrid there really isn’t much need to move around. Most people stay working in the same place all their lives anyway (partly due to Spain’s employment laws) and the public transport is so good that you never really need to move to a new area. While Madrid has some areas that are posher than others, the Spanish don’t seem to aspire to live in posher areas so much, and I’ve never heard anyone talk about “property ladders”, etc. They tend to like what is familiar.

“Most of the Spanish people I know think that it’s crazy that British people leave their home towns, family/friends to move to Spain. They like to stick together, which in many ways is the nicest way to live.”

Exactly the same in Poland, maybe its a Catholic thing. Here, even the dead relatives are looked after, the graves are clean, maintained and visited a couple of times a year.

Back in the 80’s and 90s flats were so cheap that people paid their mortgage off in 10 or 15 years and were able to buy a new flat without having to sell the old one, they just rented it out instead

95% of property is lived in mortgage free in Poland. Doesn’t stop them property speculating like crazy, however.

itsme, most families I know in Madrid tend to have moved once, to upsize and that’s it. Back in the 80’s and 90s flats were so cheap that people paid their mortgage off in 10 or 15 years and were able to buy a new flat without having to sell the old one, they just rented it out instead. And once they had paid the new flat off they might buy somewhere on the coast or in their village, depending on where they spent their weekends. While the fact that it is quite expensive to move house in Spain might have something to do with it, I think the main reason is cultural (as you say). Also in Madrid there really isn’t much need to move around. Most people stay working in the same place all their lives anyway (partly due to Spain’s employment laws) and the public transport is so good that you never really need to move to a new area. While Madrid has some areas that are posher than others, the Spanish don’t seem to aspire to live in posher areas so much, and I’ve never heard anyone talk about “property ladders”, etc. They tend to like what is familiar.

I think also a lot of families in the big cities, moved there to work (but often kept the family place back in the village, which wasn’t worth a fortune). They’d start off by buying one place for the whole family (a squeeze, but they tended to spend more time outside the family abode), but then buying up new places when the kids got married off. Just my impression, but it seems to be more common for folk to go back to “their village” (we’d say home-town) at weekends and holidays than their counterparts in say London or other uk cities.

I also like the fact that spanish people look after their elder a little more but don’t kid yourself. Mostly it’s because there is nowhere else to place them because it costs so much money to have them in elder care. Not sure it’s normal everywhere but on Mallorca I know that it’s normal that a caretaker moves in “usually latino” and they write into the will that when the person she cares for dies the house goes into the caretakers possesion. Never heard about such a setup in other countries.

Where we were older people would have an Ecudorian usually who would wear a white ‘Junta de Andalucia’ uniform and help the older person in their own home for a few hours a day. Whether they did a criminal record search I don’t know, especially since when I asked at the local police station where we could get them done because we knew we’d be asked for it when we looked for work in Ireland the whole police force didn’t seem to have a clue. It’s modelo something from the Gov. I know of others who went into the residency where the nuns care for them. Those people always seemed to hand over their property to the church.

Strange that the families would allow the ‘caretaker’ to inherit the family home in Mallorca?? I would have expected the children to contest that wouldn’t they? Isn’t usually a carer for wages (boosted by the Gov. 400 euros per month to oldies who need care), not for inheritance (as the level of care would have to be for a heck of an amount of time to be worthy of the price of a house?).

I agree that it seems that Spanish people stick around in their home towns more than others. My sister in law didn’t even consider going to Uni apart from in Almeria, as did all the cousins. They want to be close to home. More modern spaniards probably do travel a bit more now but that might be just because they don’t have much choice. If we had a 15k mortgage back in Spain we’d probably still be there, those who were stung had to leave to find work to pay their way. A free house would have been lovely and a big incentive to stay there.

I also like the fact that spanish people look after their elder a little more but don’t kid yourself. Mostly it’s because there is nowhere else to place them because it costs so much money to have them in elder care. Not sure it’s normal everywhere but on Mallorca I know that it’s normal that a caretaker moves in “usually latino” and they write into the will that when the person she cares for dies the house goes into the caretakers possesion. Never heard about such a setup in other countries.

Again, this is normal in Poland. My wife inherited a flat like this, as did a couple who moved in with a unrelated women in the same building. I heard of other cases of it happening.

Blimey… if that happened in the UK then there’d be some carers cashing in wouldn’t there. Just say that in Spain an old lady has a big old cortijo, a ‘Junta’ lady goes to care for her for a few years and then inherits the house? What happens to the usual inheritance rules of the children automatically getting it (or at least 50% isn’t it?) Why wouldn’t it just be a job like any other. It sounds too dodgy (and really unfair) to me??

If it’s true then why aren’t people scrambling to care for older people to get a free house? Or do you mean that the carers care for no wages and then get the house when the older person dies as their payment. Again as I said before, nice payment if you can get it (a mortgage free house for a couple of years of work?).

I thought it was often very sad that these ‘carers’ often left the old ladies outside whilst they went into the ‘locotorios’ to call home. And, can I say it on here, there were some rather dubious carers who I am sure didn’t get a criminal record check done (as everyone said that she was just out of prison!).

I’m going to investigate this ‘free house inheritance’ as i’ve never heard of it? If it’s true then i’m going to tell all my friends over in Spain who have stayed to struggle on should sign up to be carers!

I know people who care in the UK, respite care mainly, and they stay for 2/3/4 weeks in the home with the elderly person. They get paid per job but don’t get the house at the end of it as far as I know (or someone in my family is keeping very quiet about new found wealth? 😉

I still wonder what the children/inheritors think about someone not in the family getting the house?

I know people who care in the UK, respite care mainly, and they stay for 2/3/4 weeks in the home with the elderly person. They get paid per job but don’t get the house at the end of it as far as I know (or someone in my family is keeping very quiet about new found wealth? 😉

I still wonder what the children/inheritors think about someone not in the family getting the house?

So far as I know it’s perfectly legal to leave your assets (including any property) to whomever you like in the UK, so long as the will is done properly.
Every so often there used to be cases reported of people leaving their assets to the local cats or dogs home.

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